SUCCESSFULLY GRAFTED TORCH

It’s unlikely all 10+ heads would look the way this one head looks. In reality to get a half n half head, it has to grow against the line where the grafts were glued together.

I cant remember where but I remember seeing a wild grafted monti. These are often done by putting two different coloured montis near eachother and letting them grow out to graft - my old LFS had a stunning naturally grafted monti this way.
Montipora grafts have been some our most successful. We have done many grafts in the lab that have been successful and turned out beautiful but never on Euphyllia. From our experience, we have had a multitude of success with plating and encrusting coral as well as various SPS. Though our lab research requests for studies in grafting coral are few and far between, we are allowed to run our own research as long as it does not contaminate current studies or interfere with productivity. We mostly test equipment and supplements for commercial and home use supplied by manufacturers prior to the products hitting the market. The best part is that all of our coral projects are displayed in the local youth complex allowing the active children in the area a chance to learn about our planets coral reefs.
 
Why is everyone being negative on this. Worst case scenario you have something kinda entertaining. Best case scenario you get something incredible and new for the industry. Yurple Tangs are rare but it came from experimenting.
To be fair, not everyone has to be into Everything attempted.

I'm a torch head for sure, and I find this mildly interesting. I'm not super stoked on it because we still haven't gotten a picture of the flesh below to see if the dissimilar flesh is actually growing as one. I've damaged torch heads and had to glue them back together. The results looked just like the oral disk of this torch ever it appeared to be grown back together, but wasn't. It never split across the face. We have no idea if this will grow out and actually graft.

If I had to guess, it'll continue making either purple or green heads which makes it less cool to me. If it splits across the glue line and continues with bicolor, I'll be impressed then.
 
Why is everyone being negative on this. Worst case scenario you have something kinda entertaining. Best case scenario you get something incredible and new for the industry. Yurple Tangs are rare but it came from experimenting.
Definitely not all inclusive, but I think people's positions will differ across the board. Some want this to be a failure because it's only going to disrupt costs of the current euphyllia being sold. Up or down? You be the judge.

Another way to look at it is somewhat along the same lines of cost, if it's as easy as cutting and gluing 2 euphyllia together than anyone with 2 similar corals can do their own experiments and come out with yet another graft iteration.

Something else to consider is longevity of the splice. People may want to tamp down expectations. If you look over to the sps side of the hobby, the rainbow splice is a perfect example of a green and purple splice. It commanded upwards of $3k for a small nub of it in its heyday. Now it seems that the green is becoming the more dominant color and it has settled into a common run of the mill green milli.

Whether your position is to drive coral costs up or down. I think experiments like this are neat. And if done well, can help push the hobby forward.
 
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Actually, the torch coral grows new head by splitting, so if they fuse then they will split into multiple half and half heads and create a multi-head hybrid colony.
If any new heads sprout out of the flesh on the skeleton, however, then you are correct, as they will only exhibit the color torch they sprouted from. This is much less common and these heads rarely ever make it, so if this specimen lives then we will have a successful half and half colony
Would be interesting to see the results if it was to spawn in the aquarium, the baby’s could look very interesting as it could be a mix of both
 
I'm also just wondering how you even cut it lol. Like band saw the skeleton and knife the flesh, cuz wouldn't like the saw rip it up? So many questions but so interesting!
 
No updates for 11 months but OP logged on Friday. Definitely dead torch
“Tortured torches torched!”



That may be to harsh in the circumstances,
Let’s add a gif to lighten things up.
Boris Karloff Film GIF by hoppip


And I am glad someone tried this. :smiling-face-with-sunglasses:
 
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There was a guy a few years back that was doing this and selling them for I think $500 a head. He claimed to have sold them locally but his thread had to be locked on here do to all the negative feedback and his rude replies.
 
Do people forget these are animals?

What if people grafted a cat and dog together and it slowly suffered and died?

Still interesting experiment?

This shouldn’t be allowed on the forum, animal abuse.
eh cats and dogs are wildly different animals from coral. the experiment probably wasn’t “ethical” but neither is keeping fish in glass boxes instead of the ocean. no hate btw
 

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